Andy - my training plan
The one thing that helps me with training is having a plan. I find it difficult to motivate myself to train unless I have an event to train for and as such I tend to set myself long term goals like the Marathon des Sables or the Thames Meander. To achieve these ambitious goals I have to plan to train.
My first ultra of any consequence was the London to Brighton road race in 2005 (the last running of the event). Myself and Jerry my training partner really had no idea how to train to run for over 50 miles in one go but found an article in Runners World in October 2004 which formed the basis of a running plan. The foundation of the plan was the long weekend runs which involve running back-to-back long runs, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.
Of course any plan has to fit in with real life (work, family etc) so we had to adapt it for our own needs. The long weekend runs peaked at running about 26 miles Saturday and 28 miles Sunday for 2-4 weekends before a taper. This seems to replicate as closely as possible the feeling of running 50+ miles without the stress on the body of doing it all at once until the day.
During the week was a mixture of other running sessions up to about 10 miles but ensuring that there was at least one or two days rest each week. Along the way we would also fit in other events to help such as the Dartmoor Discovery, Marlborough Downs Challenge and other events which we used as training runs to vary the training. The program proved successful so I have used it and adapted it ever since including for the Thames Meander in 2006.
In this time I have kept the long run foundation mostly the same but find myself doing less running during the week but more cross training such as gym work, cycling or swimming. I will be following this plan up to this Thames Meander and onto the Marathon des Sables 2008 but will obviously have to adapt the time and days that I train according to family and other commitments. Last time following the Thames Meander I tried a few other long run scenarios up to the MDS but I’ll discuss those at another time.